Sarah + Rich Wedding, 29 Aug 10

It is always a privilege to shoot the wedding of friends, and weddings where most of my friends are in attendance. It is always a great feeling to do this act of service for them. It's also a treat when my wife and kids are in attendance.. they (in my eyes) are photo gold :)Rich and Sarah have a pretty long history with one another, having dated for a while, then taking a break for a while, then getting back together. When they announced their engagement, no less than 10 minutes later they asked me to photograph their wedding. I was honored to be considered so early in their planning process-- thank you, Rich and Sarah for that.
Like the other two weddings among my church, most recently Matt and Heather, the wedding had some subtle differences to most weddings that I attend. The ceremony, held outdoors at Letchworth State Park, featured several friends and family singing worship songs acapella, along with wedding guests speaking words of encouragement and faith in front of the whole group to the couple, as a sign of the community's support of their relationship. The DJ (who MC'ed the ceremony too) commented "I do a lot of weddings, but I've never seen a group of people so supportive of the couple". The love is outwardly apparent even to acquaintances of the church.

My kids were very entertaining during the reception, but I'll show most of those pictures in a post at another time. Enjoy these photos and thank you again Rich and Sarah for letting me be a part of your important day.

The best man, the officiant (and Rich's closest friend) and Rich.

Seeing her for the first time

Words of encouragement being spoken to her from one of her close girlfriends.

Something borrowed from Heather and Matt's wedding- the bridal bouquet game... where on one side all the women line up, and on the other, all the guys. The bride starts in the center, surrounded by two guys. She hands the bouquet to one of the guys, then dances to the end of the line with the one without the flowers. The guy who is left sits in the middle, and two ladies sit next to him. Kind of like musical chairs.. and whoever is left with the bouquet at the end of the song gets to keep it. This is a pretty neat idea, and married folk can participate. It was quite funny when brother-sister combos would appear in the chairs.